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Barnacles on my Project Coral

I got a Coral recently that was told to me, wasn't do too well. It hadn't extended yet after being in the tank for a week and may have been stressed so I took it on as a learning experience and because it was fairly cheap for a large piece. I forget the name of the Coral and tried finding it, but couldn't. Anyway, the day I got it, I noticed it had some Barnacles on it and extended, they were probably a half inch in length and around those, it looks like the coral is starting to die. Should I pinch and break off the barnacles? Or could there be more to the story?

I've only seen a portion of it extend and that was only for about a day before it retracted. Extended, it's like a star polyp but out of the middle, it had a long tentacle that stayed out that was like 3 inches long. Several of them in fact. And I'm sterilizing some needle nose pliers before I go breaking. lol Only things I have to do surgery like this, I use on my car.

Those are not barnacles, they are the skeleton of the coral. Yes, Galaxia. Looks like it is pretty much toast.

Very center of the picture you can see 3 of them and down towards to the lower right hand side of the picture you can see one more. There was 4 total. They reach out like a feather duster and retract after about a second of being out. I'm pretty certain they're barnacles.

Very center of the picture you can see 3 of them and down towards to the lower right hand side of the picture you can see one more. There was 4 total. They reach out like a feather duster and retract after about a second of being out. I'm pretty certain they're barnacles.

Tho you are right, I'm sure. The area's around where the barnacles were once at, have died already and are skeletons. Tho the backside of it still seems to be alive because even know some of the green looking fingers have extended just a little and look like it's being moved by the current in the tank. With the structure of the coral and the fact it looks like it's already grown over a previously dead coral, will it grow back over the skeletons assuming that the barnacles were the actual cause of it's dying?

I would say that it cant hurt to remove what you feel is not part of the coral, and then see if the coral starts to regrow. Cant hurt at this point it seems, and I have had corals look a LOT worse and come back. Worth a shot...like you said, it's a project